Category: explone

This here blog is gonna mostly about EXPLONE as we roll through the summer and on to the release of our new full-length album “Suicide Fences” in late August. Our friend Thor Radford — who created our first music video back in 2010 for “St. Yesterday” — put together this cool promo video for us. Here’s our fearless leader Pat talking about the new album and the purpose of music:

Pat is one of the most genuine humans I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. It’s not hard to see why we’ve stuck together as a band all this time.

We have a lot more music and video headed your way in the next few weeks!

This year marks my eight year as the bassist of EXPLONE. How is that even possible? I’ve been a member of of this band longer than I’ve been with any band.

Later this summer EXPLONE will finally release our new album “Suicide Fences” and we’re priming the promotion engine with a new single. Please enjoy and share our shoegaze-y rock version of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.” Click the big image below to listen:

We shot the entire thing using my iPhone 4 and I edited it together in iMovie on my Macbook Pro.

We started filming this in Spring 2011, using a rough mix of the song. In the gap between then and the EP release in Fall 2012, our drummer Josh up and left Seattle for Boulder, and (Kirby Krackle drummer) Nelson stepped in. It seemed wrong to replace Josh with Nelson in the video, too. Also, you won’t find me in the video. I couldn’t find a way to put myself in that didn’t feel dumb or contrived.

Big thanks to my patient bandmates who let me run with this, just to see if I could!

Also, this work is dedicated to my Dad, who once long ago taught me how to frame a shot and the power of black-and-white images. Who’d have thought back then we’d someday have pocket-sized phones that could shoot 1080p video?

If you’re reading this, and you’re in Seattle or parts nearby, get thee to Piecora’s Back Room tonight and witness Explone and Super Projection tear it up at a rare all-ages show. I can guarantee there will be pizza and there will be rock. Pizza topped with rock, perhaps.

See that console? That’s a 1970’s Trident A-Range, rumored to have been used by Lennon and Sinatra for various projects. And, as of two weeks ago, my bass tracks for the new Explone EP, Telescope and Satellite.

Behold! The power of black and white to make one look totally competent!

Here’s Patrick in front of a wall of gear and blinking lights:

This is what I love about music hubs like Seattle, every studio has a history. And sometimes so does the gear. AVAST! is also home to “Lenny,” a modded API Legacy console, once owned by Lenny Kravitz. My backing vocals went through that one. There’s another API that used to tour with Heart as a monitor mixer. We didn’t use that one. Tons of famous PNW artists have recorded here — Death Cab, The Shins, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes — but I think its real cachet comes from being the place where Soundgarden recorded their breakout album Badmotorfinger.

It’s hard not to hope for a little of that magic to rub off on you.

Exciting as that may be, the majority of time spent in-studio looks a lot like this:

That’s us listening to probably four or five different takes of the same song at 11pm, trying to decide what parts to keep. This is also probably ten hours in, the first six of those spent setting up microphones and getting good guitar and drum tones. There’s a lot of hanging around and listening. It still manages to be a blast while slowly destroying your sanity.

Seattle band Born Anchors are trying to raise funds for a vinyl pressing of their new record. They’re using a Kickstarter campaign and only have a few weeks to reach their goal.

Longtime me-supporter and Demo Clubber Joel Canfield composed a wandering Arabic-trance track and is aiming for 1000 downloads. Get it here. Also, he and his wife are selling the car and home and living like a nomads for awhile. Gutsy.

Save You From Yourself alumni Laurie Katherine Carlsson and Jerin Falkner have founded a group with some other local performers called the Sintonia Collective. They sent in an audition tape and won an opportunity to perform with Imogen Heap here in Seattle a few weeks back.

This is pretty great right here: Sintonia with Imogen Heap, performing Heap’s song “Earth” a cappella:

And here’s the group performing Jerin’s song “Charade” during the opening slot:

“Michigan” has already been added to regular rotation at über-cööl KEXP, which broadcasts both here in Seattle and in NYC, and globally across the web. It’s already gotten a bit of airplay love, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone if you were to, like, you know, request it.

I’ve been with the band for just over two years now, but this album is the culmination of five years of work by our heroic bandleader Patrick, whose vision of combining Cheap Trick-era melody with shoegaze melancholy, then arc-welding it onto the body of a very angry 1986 Hüsker Dü has finally come to fruition. Congrats buddy :)